The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-05-08
MiRK TWAlB, HUhORISf,
0RITICIsEs THE CRITICS OF GEN.
GRANTS ENGLISH.
And Quotes q Few Striking Sem
fences to Prove the
Strength Of II.

" OIuD VI OOuuOOOiSuS AD' "SS
the chief address, on the memory OF
Gen. Grant, was made by the Rev.
DR.. M. B. Riddle, formerly chap
lain in the service. He was followed
by s. L. Clemens Mark Twain, who
delivered the followed characteristic
address:
l will detain you with only just a
few words-just a few thousand
woodland then give place to bet
ter man, if he has been created.
Lately great and honored author,
Matthew Arnold, has been finding
fault with Gen. Grants English.
That would be fair enough, may be,
if the examples of imperfect En-
glish averaged more instances to the
page in Gen. Grants book than they
do in Mr.. Arnolds criticism upon
the book, but they don't. Laughter
and applause. 1t would be fair
enough, may be, if such instances
were commoner in Gen. Grants book
than they are in the works of the
average standard author, but they
aren't.
In truth, Gen. Grants derelictions
in the matter of grammer and con-
struction are not more frequent than
are such dereliotions in the works of
a majority of professional authors of
our time and of all previous times
authors as exclusively and painstak-
ingly trained to the literary trade as
was Gen. Grant to the trade of war.
[Applause.] This is not a random
statement; it is a fact, and easily
demonstrable.
have at home a book called
Modern English Literature, It's Btens-
ishes and Defects, by Henry III.
Breen, +. S. A., countryman of
Mr.. Arnold. In it find examples
of bad grammar and slo yenly English
from the pens of Sydney Smith,
Sheridan Hallam, Whateley, Carlyle,
both Disraelis, Allison, Junius,
Blair, Macaulay, Shakespeare, Mil
ton, Gibbon, Southey, Bulwer, Cob
bett, DR.. Samuel johnson, French,
Lamb, Lander, Smollet, Walpole,
Walker (of the dictionary, Christie
pher North, Kirke White, Mrs. Sig
Quincy, Benjamin Franklin, Walter
Scott and Mr.. Indy Murray, who
made the grammar. In Mr.. Arnold's
paper on Gen. Grants book we find
couple of grammatical crimes, and
more than several examples OF crude
and slovenly English-enough of
them to easily entitle him to lofty
place in that illustrious galaxy of
delinquents just named. The follow
ing passage, all by itself, ought to
elect him:
Meade suggested to Grant that he
might wish to have Immediately
under him Sherman, who had been
serving with Grant in the West. He
begged him not to hesitate if he
thought it was for the good of the
service. Grant assured him that he
had no thought of moving him, aud
in his memoirs, after relating what
had passed, he adds, etc.
To read that passage a couple of
times would make man dizzy; to
read it four times would make him
urunk. luIoaJ lauShIOi'J
GEN. GRANTS GRAMMAR,
Gen. Grants Grammar is as good
as anybody's, but if this were not so
Mr.. Brees would brush that incon-
sequential fact aside and hunt his
great book for far higher game. Mr..
Breen makes this discriminating re-
marx.
To suppose that because a man is
a poet, or a historian, he must be
correct in his grammar, is to sup
pose that an architect must be a
| Joiner, or a physician a compounder
of medicine.
Mr.. Breen's point is we'll taken.
II you should climb the mighty
Matterhorn to look, out over the
kingdom of the earth, it might be a
pleasant incident to find strawber-
ries up there, but great Scott, you
don't climb the Matterhorn for
strawberries Continued applause.
| don't think Mr.. Arnold was
| quite wise, for he we'll knew
that that Briton or American
was never yet born who could
safely assault another man S
English; he knew as we'll as he
knows anything that the man never
lived whose English was flawless.
| Can you believe that Mr.. Arnold
was immodest enough to imagine
himself an exception to this cast
iron rule-the sole exception discov-
cradle within the three or four cen
turies during which the English Ian
guage proper has been in existence?
No, Mr.. Arnold did not imagine
that; he merely forgot that for a mo-
ment he was moving into a glass
house, and he had hardly got fairly
in before Gen. Fry was shivering the
panes over his head. Laughter
People may hunt out what micro
scopic moles they please, but after
all, the fact remains and cannot be
dislodged that Gen. Grants book is
a great land in its peculiar depart
ment), unique, and unapprOachable
literary masterpiece. In their line
there is no higher literature than
those modest, simple Memoirs. "
Their style is at least flawless, and
no man can improve upon it; and
great books are weighed and meas
ured by their style and matter, not
by the trimmings aud shading of the
grammar. There is that about the
sun which makes US forget his poles,
and when we think Of Gen. Grant
our pulse quicken and his grammar
vanishes; we only remember that
this is the simple soldier who, all
untaught of the silken phrase max.
ers, linked words together with an
art surprising the art of the schools,
and put into them a something
which will still bring to American